My last two flights were on United, and ironically on the second leg of my trip the woman across the aisle from me had a little French bulldog on her lap the whole flight. Compared to some of the other airlines I've flown over the past year, I'd give United better marks than a lot of them. The seats were wider than most, they had knee room, their electronics worked, and the food, while not five star, was at least edible.

Government already promised 40. Not 100.Radiation sievert levels coming down, with 1000s of engineers working 24 hours, it may be even less than 40.

A government promise in Japan on just about anything except raising taxes isn't worth the paper it's written on. The government has no idea what it's doing, and is just throwing money after money at the thing to give TEPCO funds so it's amukudari brigade can pad their nests.

The only thing I'll point out is that if the NPA does pass a regulation requiring them to be 1 meter off the ground, expect accidents to increase. Raising a vehicle's center of gravity means it is less stable on curves and turns. Expect go-karts that are jacked up to 1 meter tall to be flipping over on turns if taken at any type of speed.

My actual hope is that Trump makes it exactly one day past 2 years. That way, when Pence takes over, he's only constitutionally allowed to run for re-election once, just in case the people somehow like him.

Yeah right, he's selling on the level of PT Barnum right now. If his ankle is only 20-30% better, he's got nothing left for the long term grind, and he knows it. He's trying to cash in now, get some sponsorship or something extra to let him do little as he 'prepares for the quad axel' or something... and then when he doesn't get it just shrug and retire.

Australian coverage of the games is the same, only showing events where Australia is playing. Think all countries do the same.

Incorrect. While Channel 7's coverage was more nationalistic than previous Olympics, there was plenty of coverage of events such as cross country skiing, bobsleigh, luge, hockey, and other sports where Aussies or Kiwis weren't involved. In fact, I saw more coverage of them than of Kailani Craine's figure skating. While 7 did do interviews with her and replayed her short program, it was nowhere near the level of NHK's coverage of Sochi, where I saw Hirano's qualifying run for the snowboard halfpipe over a dozen times, and none of the other competitors'.

Best thing my wife and I did when we had a baby in Japan: We told the doctors that we weren't going to put up with their nonsense. And since his birth, my son's been routinely mistaken for a child older than he is, as he's usually taller than children a year or two older than he is.

Until Japan has better ice dancers and pairs skaters, they'll never get above 5th place either. The simple fact is, Chris Reed only skates for Japan because he and his sister weren't good enough to even make the Juniors team in the USA, yet could immediately vault to the top of the Japanese rankings.

It's about the same for pairs in Japan.

Until those two elements start to match the high levels shown on the men's and ladies' solo events, the best Japan can hope for is 5th, or maybe 4th if a bunch of other people fall.

I think the court's stance now is that while there is no punitive penalty for not paying, the court's can garnish wages, incur a civil debt, etc for the actual fees themselves. So NHK can get their money, just there is no direct penalty, per se, for not obeying.

goldorak, Brady's 40 with a repaired ACL, at the end of a very long season. It's amazing anyone's out there not looking like geriatrics, which I guarantee you all of them will be feeling like tomorrow morning.

Tokyo wins with an 'economical' bid. Then, starting with the original stadium debacle, they come out with a price tag that's billions upon billions more than what they originally said.

The IOC steps in, says to cut the costs or else. Tokyo, of course, says they'll start trimming, etc... and they do. At first. Now, with 2 years to go, they think it's safe to go back to their original well padded brown envelope filled budget, they do so, just with a different distribution of how the brown envelopes are divvied out on the surface.

It's all a scam, and if I were the IOC or any major sporting event, I'd remember this... and steer clear of any budget Japan puts forth from now on. Or else require that it be put in escrow prior to the bid being completed, and once that money's gone, it's gone. If Japan has egg on their face after that, that's their problem.

Himajin, considering that the point system that Hanyu has these records for has only existed for 14 years, there's no way to say that his accomplishments would be comparable to previous generations. Until 2004, all figure skaters competed on "6.0" system, which worked quite differently.

Really, the only way to compare across generations is to look at total number of World and Olympic titles won. For example, Gilles Grafstrom and Evegny Plushenko can both lay claim to being "the GOAT" before Hanyu, based off the fact that Grafstrom has 3 golds and 1 silver, with his 3 golds being consecutive, while Plushenko's 1 gold in single and 1 team gold is paired with 2 silvers.

And that's just the men. In the women, he would have to also pass the accomplisments of Sonia Henie, Katarina Witt, or even Michelle Kwan (who was at one point called the Queen of 6's because of the total number of 6.0's she scored under the old system).

SO yeah, I'd still say the writer had more than a little bias or maybe just more than a little hyperbole.

The idea of opening culture by going overseas is only effective if the young people actually have true interaction with the overseas culture.

Having a "Japan bubble" of a tour group that has a meticulously planned out schedule with Japanese speaking guide, holding a little flag on a stick and doing things no differently than if they'd gone to Yokohama instead doesn't give cultural awareness and understanding. A bubble where they don't have to actually interact with any of the people overseas beyond maybe smiling and taking pictures isn't going to accomplish any goals.

As others have said, the idea of 'hosting' the Olympics no longer has a luster for most Western countries either because A) been there, done that, got the t-shirt, or B) they see that for all the hoopla, it doesn't really do that much.

Seriously, what are the long term benefits for, say, Sarajevo? Calgary? Turin? Lillehammer? Those aren't the only Winter Olympic cities, of course, but I've been to Nagano. I've skated in M-wave, I've been to Hakuba to see the remaining sites there.

Do you know what I saw in M-wave? A thousand dollar weightlifting bar, most likely bought with Olympic money for speed skaters, sitting in a dusty corner of the arena slowly rusting. Downstairs under the arena is another weight training area where there was dust on the mirrors from lack of use. Is there a knock-on effect? Doubtful, as most of the Olympic stuff has fallen into disuse or is now so decrepit it can't be used.

The summer Olympics are probably the same. Millions and millions (if not billions) of dollars spent... for an imaginary feather in the cap of some politician and an honor that gets forgotten within a few years. Do you think the people of Rio are happy about the money their country spent for the 'honor' of the Olympics?

Some will say that such honors inspire or raise the prestige of the host city/country. Maybe it used to, I doubt it though. You want to know what really raises the prestige? Having good housing, thriving economies, safe streets, good transportation, etc, etc. Compared to those, hosting the Olympics is small potatoes.

It's very simple. When the cost for my family to go to one movie (tickets, drinks and a shared snack) is easily the price of multiple months of a streaming service... I'm going to wait the extra few months for the movie to make it onto a service.

No way am I going to pay cinema prices for movies, especially with the junk that's being put out now.

Onaga never passes up a chance to complain about the US military. If a report came out that a US serviceman sneezed on the street and accidentally caught a local with some of the spray, he'd probably be in front of the cameras and microphones within an hour complaining about the "Outrageous conduct and germ warfare being perpetrated on the people of Okinawa."

Paying workers more also ensures that a company will have a greater chance of attracting the best talent, a long term investment that means long term stability.

Another potential (although not in Japan with their lifetime employment system, etc) is that paying workers more creates a more motivated, harder working worker who will do more than just skate by doing the bare minimum. It also creates greater worker loyalty and fosters a sense from the workers that the company actually gives a daikon about them, so they'll give one about the company.

Paying workers more is an investment in the long term success of the company.

This is exactly why I hate watching baseball in Japan; I always hit the language button because the Japanese announcers always paint the Japanese star as the savior of the team.

This is why I stopped watching any and all TV news in Japan. If you watch J-news sports, you'd have thought that all of MLB consisted of Boston, Seattle, Texas Rangers (only when Yu Darvish pitched), Florida when they would let Ichiro play... and some other nameless, part time teams that nobody really cares about. Later, when Darvish was traded to the Angels, the MLB gained 1 more team.

question, one that I think talks about the perspective on both sides of this.

So many of the people upset at this statue and others like it keep pointing to the 2015 agreement. Yet, from the information available to the public, these statues are all arranged and paid for by private groups of individuals, and not by the South Korean government.

Yet many still blame the government of South Korea.

I wonder, if this is the case, then what is the difference between that at when Shinzo Abe and other members of the government make statements or engage in actions such as visiting of Yasukuni Shrine, supposedly 'in their roles as private individuals and not in their position as members of the government of Japan.'

I'm not saying one side is better than the other, but there is a thin veneer of ridiculousness on both sides. However, if one side can say one thing formally yet do something completely opposite in their 'private personage,' then why can't the other?

If that is the type of question that this survey measures, then I can see both why the Japanese students did well, and also why there's a lot of shade thrown on this news story.

The sample questions didn't really involve 'problem solving,' in the traditional sense, but more 'find the answer' questions. There was little to no unique processing or creative interpretation of said factual data to create an actual solution to a 'problem.'